This article has been updated.
Rackspace Technology’s board of directors has appointed Amar Maletira to be its new CEO, replacing Kevin Jones, who has departed the company.
The sudden development, announced Monday, comes three years after Jones took the reins at the company, after predecessor Joe Eazor — who himself was only there about two years. The company has now seen five CEOs since being acquired by Apollo Global Management in 2016.
Maletira has been the company’s president and chief financial officer. He will continue to serve in his other roles until a new CFO is appointed, according to the company’s press release.
Maletira joined the company in November 2020. Previously he served in executive roles at various technology companies, including 13 years at Hewlett Packard.
According to a press release from Rackspace, Maletira has “assumed responsibilities immediately.”
Rackspace board Chair David Sambur, who is also co-head of private equity at Apollo Global Management, said in a prepared statement that Maletira’s appointment “will allow us to improve and accelerate the execution of our new go-forward strategy.”
Maletira said he was looking forward to leading the company “as we transition to our new strategy and operating model.”
Apollo Global Management is a private equity giant that bought the company in 2016 in a $4.3 billion deal.
Jones will take on the role of “operating advisor” with Apollo, according to the release.
Rackspace has grappled with growing losses in recent years and is looking to sell off parts of the company. Earlier this year it floated selling the entire company following “inbound interest” but ultimately cast that plan aside.
Rackspace came out of a self-examination process earlier this year with the conclusion that “a sum of the parts valuation of Rackspace Technology could be larger than our current enterprise value,” Jones said in an SEC filing in May.
Company officials said at the time that it would potentially provide more information about its “go-forward” plan in the fall. Rackspace is reorganizing its business into two primary blocks. One block would serve so-called “public clouds” that are customer-facing and hosted by tech giants like Google and Amazon. The other block would service “private clouds” hosted inside individual companies.
Leadership inside the company has expressed optimism that investments in both growing markets will pay dividends down the road.
Jones said in an earning call in August that its key partners, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, had responded positively to the restructuring plan. But the reaction from analysts since then has largely been to downgrade its stock ratings. The restructuring plan appears to prolong what has been a years-long period of reinvention and transition for a company that once primarily hosted web servers.
Rackspace’s share price has fallen steadily since its peak of more than $26 in April 2021. Last September it sold for a little more than $14. On Friday, it had dropped below $5.
Last summer, the company laid off 10% of its workforce, or 700 employees, in a plan that called for refilling many of those positions overseas. Many of its then-7,000 employees worked at its headquarters in the city of Windcrest, in northeast San Antonio.
The company has reported growing revenue every quarter for more than two years, but also widening losses. Its second quarter results this year showed losses of $41 million, about 11% higher than a year prior.
On Monday, the company announced that it expected third quarter results, to be posted in November, to show up to $779 million in revenue.
